I really do not how 41% of the playerbase can be for this feature. First I am not sure everyone fully understand what we are talking about so let’s make the distinction:
ballistic (upgrade to be researched in aoe2) =/= homing arrows that we have right now in aoe4 from the start of the game.
Ballistic = archers anticipate the ennemy movement and shoot where the ennemy is going to be once the arrow reaches him instead of just shooting where the ennemy is at the time of releasing the arrow.
Homing arrows = even if the ennemy changes direction AFTER the arrow has been shot, the arrow will track him (changing its direction on its own like a guided missile) and hit him every time.
I think most players would be fine with units having ballistic from the start, but homing arrows is not in away way acceptable (gameplay wise) nor justifiable (setting wise).
The good part of rts games is that there are too many things for you to manage and you can choose wether you’re more of a macro or micro player. Meaning being able to micro against arrows will NOT force you to do so to win the game. Even at the pro level in AoE2 some players poorly manage their micro against archers. But this game restricts a lot of stuff on the micro side and only caters to one part of the player base of an rts, this is dumb. You do realize that if this feature is implemented and you get out-microed by your opponent then his macro (army/vill production, dealing with idle vills, researching upgrades …) has probably been lacking for 10 seconds, and if it hasn’t then this player is clearly better than you and should be rewarded. Also that would allow to not loose our scout to the ennemy TC early game when the TC barely appears on your mini map and your scout is basically doomed if the opponent garrison his vills.
Most of you disagreeing with this are probably never even gonna experience an opponent microing against your archers anyway so why deprive better players of a feature that will not effect lower level games ?
I also think that this reasoning applies to a number of other discussed features, so please when giving you oppinion ask yourself “will that really change anything for me and my games”, if not then why care ?
I have seen people opposing having more freedom for keybindings for example, what is the reasoning behind that ? This would not in any way forbid any one to still bind using the current grid system.
It is unrealistic to be able to effectively dodge arrows by moving. Arrows move really fast. This is not aaccurately represented by the game because projectiles move so slow, but if someone shot an arrow at you from the distances featured in his game, you’d never see it coming. Even less so the xbows
LOL that’s an interesting assumption. There is more to micro than just dodging arrows.
Kiting, focusing, drawing a concave, and saving low hp units still exists.
Yeah this is ridicilous attempt at elitism. I played vs some of the top players and even beat some of the top 10-20 from the closed beta. And coming from superior rts games (to aoe2) such as sc2, I say arrows works great now
Exactly. And it’s not like we’ve reached the absolute cap on micro so that people dont have stuff to do. Removing dodging projectiles makes room for other kind of micro. Like pulling back a unit thats being focused, or attacking one more spot at the same time.
For the average player arrow honing increases the base micro load. You need to constantly be checking your armies spacing to make sure you haven’t wandered into archer range and you also need to be tracking their location so they don’t pop out of fog of war and kill 2 vils at max range.
This is why for me arrow honing is a largely neutral mechanical change. You lose arrow dodging micro for the top 1% and get spacing micro for everyone. I think it’s controversial atm because everyone hasn’t learned to space their units properly and therefore are getting rekt by archers.
Yeah I know I played a lot of sc2 and still watch pro tournaments weekly. But it’s a futuristic setting we’re talking about, stalkers shoot freaking lasers for example.
Plus the issue I have is aoe4 has already taken out severall micro mechanics. Starcraft is micro intensive because it allows a lot of other stuff that aoe4 doesn’t. A big part of the micro in sc2 are the units’ abilities that need to be dodged or even countered by other units’ abilities, but very few units have abilities in aoe4. So saying aoe4 can be micro-intensive with homing arrows because sc2 is in this situation does not work because you’re looking at this issue in a vaccum, not considering everything that makes sc2 micro intensive is already not present in this game. So if you take out the few things that were still there, then there’s nothing left.
Plus as I said in the post, what even is your issue with what I said ? Even if you’re right (which I don’t think you are and explained why just above) and aoe4 doesn’t need dodgeable arrows to be micro-intensive, what is the issue with adding it ? Players will supposedly already have too many things to micro manage and not dodge arrows, which would result in ballistic arrows working almost as homing ones. On the other hand if you’re wrong and there are not enough things to micro, then being able to dodge arrows would partially balance this out, allowing players to do something in fights beside just watching.
idk why that matters tbh. Its about gameplay not setting.
If they were aliens with bows i’d still have the same experience.
What else have they taken out?
im saying that even in the absence of unit abilities SC2 has great micro.
I’ve also always been a supporter of adding more abilities to aoe IV but that isn’t as important as my main point.
Micro, and the benefits it provides to high skill players, still exists.
That is simply not true, longbows were able to shoot up to 300 meters letting plenty of time before the arrow reaches the desired locations. You want realism then arrow shouldn’t even have 100% precision even against still targets. But I’m not advocating for that at it doesn’t matter as much. More realism will just debunk more and more you argument for super precise, homing arrows.
I don’t feel realism should significantly impact core game mechanics. If it did we would have crossbows that shoot once every 30s and attacks from all units would do very little damage outside of critical hits that kill units instantly. I think arrow accuracy falls into this same category of realistic elements that can be changed to make the game more fun to play.
I personally don’t mind the gameplay aspects of homing arrows. However, I do wish homing arrows to be removed not because of gameplay balance, but I just want to see those arrow effects sticking to the ground, walls, buildings and such.
